Bored? How to deal with being bored.
Have you ever wonder why we feel bored? Boredom occurs when we cannot tolerate not having anything to do. The body may be at rest but our brain keeps wanting something to happen or to do.
According to Wikipedia, boredom has been defined by C. D. Fisher in terms of its central psychological processes: “an unpleasant, transient affective state in which the individual feels a pervasive lack of interest in and difficulty concentrating on the current activity.” M. R. Leary describe boredom as “an affective experience associated with cognitive attentional processes.” In positive psychology, anxiety is described as a response to a moderate challenge for which the subject has more than enough skill. These definitions make it clear that boredom arises not from a lack of things to do but from the inability to latch onto any specific activity.
There are 3 types of boredom, all of which involve problems of engagement of attention. These include times when we are prevented from engaging in something, when we are forced to engage in some unwanted activity, or when we are simply unable, for no apparent reason, to maintain engagement in any activity or spectacle.
One thing I notice about boredom is that it is usually a human affliction affecting both adults and teenagers. Very young children or kids and other living things do not seem to be bothered by boredom.
My friend Jon have a pet dog named Rocky and his job is to stay around the house and bark if he sees any strangers. Other than that, he has nothing else to do. However I have never ever seen him looking bored. Usually when there is nothing much happening, he just sit to a corner and have a nap. He will wake up when he has to and he will does not suffer the guilt that we have when he takes a nap. He doesn’t suffer from insomnia or reluctance to get up from sleep.
What I notice is that this is the same with other animals and living things that I know, not only Rocky. They do not seem to suffer from boredom.
Living in this modern world, we are taught since young to always be busy. We busy ourselves with work, education, play so much so our brain do not know how to take a rest. The evidence of this is that a normal person usually cannot stop thinking. Only very young children don’t use their brain unnecessarily.
When one’s body takes a rest, it is not long before the monkey mind starts demanding some sort of activity. It cannot stand inactivity. He or she will feel very uncomfortable and the brain will keep saying how boring it is. So eventually something will need to be done to satisfy the demands of the brain.
Now the question is, how do we counteract this affliction? Boredom is a condition where a person cannot stand doing nothing. Which means he cannot stand being himself. In other words, he does not love himself enough to feel at peace within. So, one way is to learn to love himself again and not indulge in unnecessary thinking. That way his brain learns to take rest and will not make demands on him so often. In time boredom can thus disappeared.